Monday, November 14, 2011

Healing words: broadcaster Martha Kearney joins judges for 2012 Hippocrates Awards for Poetry and Medicine

BBC broadcaster and journalist Martha Kearney has joined New York poet and critic Marilyn Hacker and medical scientist Professor Rod Flower FRS to complete the judging panel for the 2012 Hippocrates Awards for Poetry and Medicine.

In its first 2 years, the Hippocrates Prize attracted around 3000 entries from 31 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia.

Entries are now open for the 2012 Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine, which is for unpublished poems in English. The deadline for entries is 31st January 2012.

With a 1st prize for the winning poem in each category of £5,000, the Hippocrates prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem. In each category there is also a 2nd prize of £1,000, 3rd  prize of £500, and 20 commendations each of £50. 

Medicine may be interpreted in the broadest sense. Themes for prize entries may include the nature of the body and anatomy; the history, evolution, current and future state of medical science; the nature and experience of tests; the experience of doctors, nurses and other staff in hospitals and in the community. 

Other topics might include experience of patients, families, friends and carers; experiences of acute and long-term illness, dying, birth, cure and convalescence; the patient journey; the nature and experience of treatment with herbs, chemicals and devices used in medicine.

Awards are in an Open category, which anyone in the world may enter, and an NHS category, which is open to UK National Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations involved in education and training of NHS students and staff.

Awards will be presented in London on Saturday May 12th 2012, at the 3rd International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine, to be held at the Wellcome Collection rooms in London.

Martha Kearney is the main presenter for BBC Radio 4’s lunchtime news programme ‘The World at One’. She has worked for Channel 4, presented the BBC’s Woman’s Hour, Today and PM and was political editor for Newsnight, and has both judged the Webb Essay Prize and chaired the judging panel for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

The Hippocrates Awards were co-founded by medical researcher Professor Donald Singer and poet and translator Michael Hulse.

New Zealand poet CK Stead won the inaugural 2010 international prize, with 3rd prize in the 2011 awards going to New Zealander Johanna Emeney. . The Awards and related international symposium bring together interest from patients, theirs friends and family, health professionals, professional poets and academics.

2012 Hippocrates Awards for Poetry and Medicine
www.hippocrates-poetry.org
£5000 first prize - one of the highest value awards in the world for a single poem

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